When you’re in the market for home security – and that means peace of mind – the process can be a little daunting.
• First, you want to know how it works. You want to know what it does, and exactly what you are buying.
• Then you want to know what it costs. This is important with home security, since you are dealing with both the upfront cost for the home security equipment, and the monthly fee for the monitoring and the interactive services. And remember, cellular monitoring is the only safe way to go!
• Lastly, you really want to know which companies you can trust. Because let’s face it, when the chips are down, and when it’s your family and your home that are on the line, you want the highest level of quality and customer satisfaction.
The Power of Customer Reviews

So today we’ll talk about one of the best ways to tell the good guys from the bad guys – and that is through reading customer reviews while doing your research. Online consumer activity, even for comparison shopping, has gone through the roof in recent years. And what the remarkable statistics don’t tell you (but we know it’s a fact!) is that buyers are becoming more discriminating – and are turning increasingly to the online reviews, written by actual users of products and services, to help find reputable providers.

Shopping Hard for Home Security

This trend toward placing your faith in online reviews is especially relevant for important services like wireless home security and home automation, where we’ve seen that nothing beats the power and convenience of on-line customer testimonials. Customer reviews certainly represent the most effective and efficient method for comparing companies to see what actual users have to say about the folks providing these goods and services. So it naturally follows that when protecting your home and family, you definitely want to choose the company with the best reputation and the latest technology, along with the highest service level: all that spells peace of mind, which you deserve.

What Customers Say Matters

As for the reviews themselves, you’ll find that you can learn a lot about a company – and quickly. I’ve posted on the growth and importance of home security company review sites before – including the granddaddy of review sites – the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Today you can check online reviews for just about any company – even the ones who knock on your door, offering a deal you cannot refuse. Just remember: you really want to do your homework before you sign up with any service company – especially home security.

Specific Sites to Visit

Some of the popular sites (like Yelp.com and epinions.com) have starred rating systems, and users can apply a 1-5 score along with a detailed description of their experience. Angie’s List is a membership review site, where their subscribers can share detailed notes about a wide range of service providers. And when you want to take a general look around, just go to your search engine of choice, and type in the name of a company, followed by the word, “reviews.” You should see plenty to pick from.

Complaint-Specific Sites
You can even visit some sites that are specifically orientated to complaints. A couple of example are complaints.com, and one of my personal favorites: pissedconsumer.com. While good news may be hard to find at these sites, and they may not necessarily be sufficient to give you the complete picture on a company, these “negative review” sites do offer some instructive cautionary tales.
You may have found your own great review sites: the good news is that almost all review sites are objective, credible, and rarely subject to abuse, which makes them all the more useful. Chalk this up as one more valuable lesson in how to remove the mystery from finding peace of mind, while protecting your home and family.

A lot of good information here. As we get older and new things come out it seems I just can’t keep up. We were not brought up on pc’s and cell phones and trying to under stand this stuff is hard enough.
But the information here helps some of us that just don’t know what to look for or who to ask. thank you LB.

This is some great info on how to choose a security company; I’m thankful that I ended up going with the company I did (Weinstein) because they are honest, reliable and responsive. They’re truly the best- if you live in the Bay Area, I strongly recommend them!

Derrick

Frontpoint has been a great service provider. They are very responsive when alarms go off and the system is very reliable. Unfortunately, I need to cut my budget and am looking for someone who would like to take my contract which has 13 months left as of December 2016. I’ll give you the two motion sensors and three door alarma for free and I’ll pay the transfer fee. This is a great deal to try out the service for shorter than a 3 year period. My number is 6187891332 if you’re interested.

You certainly hit the nail on the head. Many consumers now research brands or products before buying and rely heavily on other customers’ reviews.

You mentioned Yelp in this post. I dislike Yelp quite a bit (although I am an active Yelper). I think their algorithm for filtering reviews (positive and negative) is very flawed.

Angie’s List was a much more reliable source for reviews (especially for home service providers such as Frontpoint). I managed a large Angie’s List partnership for a couple years and know from firsthand experience that the reviews are authentic (or at least were) and came from very relevant consumers.

I say “was” and “were” because Angie’s List dropped their paywall back in July (2016). The paid memberships ensured members were real, high-quality, engaged, and vocal. Now anyone can create an account and post a bogus review.

However, even without a paywall I still prefer Angie’s List over Yelp. As of today (I just checked), Frontpoint has 176 unfiltered reviews on Yelp and 238 filtered reviews (many of which appear to be legitimate). While over at Angie’s List, Frontpoint has 7,941 reviews with 6,700 “A” ratings.

Frontpoint has been on Angie’s List for 8+ years, so the vast majority of those reviews were added by homeowners that actually paid for an Angie’s List membership prior to the paywall coming down. That is a tremendous amount of feedback from real customers that paid Angie’s List just so they could read and write reviews of home service providers. As a consumer, I find those reviews to be the most telling and valuable.

Thanks for the post and for creating a Brand with a sincere commitment to providing the best service and customer experience.

Victim Customer

I am terminating frontpoint security today for its failure of detecting a break in to my home and Fontpoint’s poor customer service.

Had a break-in to my home at the end of August. Frontpoint system did not trigger any alarm even the thieves broke the whole backdoor and glasses. Calling the account service person and all you get is 30 minutes of how Frontpoint cares about its customers. Good luck to everyone using their system.

Katie Rynex

Thank you bringing your concerns to our attention. We would like the opportunity to discuss your concerns in more detail but we cannot locate your account with the information provided her. Please send an email with the name on the account to WeCare@fontpointsecurity.com and we will have a Support Supervisor reach out to you soon. Thank you again, and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Great article! Thanks for all the information. I was wondering how to buy home security related articles and you really helped me. I found a great site that offers great products but first I wanted to learn a little bit about this topic and you helped me a lot.

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Such a great post by you….. It’s very important to know all the feature & quality of security system while going to purchase. We should prefer that company which provide full responsibility for the security product.
Thanks for post!!!!!!!!!!

Wow, great article! It really is important to do a lot of research before you commit to home security. One thing that can be really helpful is finding a company that combines services, such as alarm installation and response, patrolling, guard and event services. Check out how we make your security our top priority: http://weinsteinsecurity.com/

ElizabethMunk

Informative post, I agree that you have to do a lot of research before you decide on a company. When I shopping for cctv cameras I came across api alarms http://www.apialarm.com/ and they seem pretty good but I only agreed to their services after making sure that they had good customer reviews.

Make a peace of mind in your life give a wireless home security in your home. It is relay a important part of your home. Varieties company being verities door bell. Latest technology service us a peace of mind which you deserve it.

tennille

Do not use this company!! I promise you that the people doing these reviews have not had their front door kicked in, I did have mine kicked in almost two weeks ago. Frontpoint is not a company that will keep you safe. We live in Canada and out front door was kicked in. They called each of us once, left no message and never called back. Our house was robbed and the front door hung open for 9 hours. Again, no contact was ever made with us when we asked why they didn’t call back or leave a message we were told ‘they don’t have the resources for that’. Isn’t that there only job, to ensure we are safe? They also were unaware of the police response protocols in our jurisdiction and were unable to get police help. This was completely acceptable and they will take no responsibility for their actions. DO NOT USE FRONTPOINT!!!

Tim Johnson

Talweb, what garage door feature are you referring to? I’ve had garage door sensors in use for many months now, and I know Frontpoint has supported this long before I ordered mine. Is there some other garage door feature?

I extended my entry timeout to allow enough a little extra time to disarm since I usually open the garage door as I’m approaching in the car. I also have set a notification if I leave the garage door open for longer than half an hour in case I forget it’s open.

Hello Mr. Peter,
Had a great time at your blog. I liked your post and the most important thing which I liked in your post that is “rating system”. By using this feature of security system, the business owner can attract people to their product.
Thanks for post!!!!!!!

Talweb

When will you be turning on the garage door feature. Frontpoint has been stating since 2014 that this feature is coming. It is baked into Alarm.com aka Frontpoint already, flip the switch. Customer service is only part of the puzzle. Functionality deficiencies are another big piece. Other alarm.com providers have had this and other great features available for to their customers for years. “What Customers Say Matters” as you state above, well your customers have been saying for years to add the garage door function.

Meet the Team

Katie has served in multiple roles in Frontpoint’s Customer Relations department, including serving as a mentor for new Customer Support Specialists, before joining the Reputation Team. She has a knack for explaining how to use a system without confusing even the biggest technology novice.

Peter has more than 20 years of home security experience; including leadership positions at some of the country’s most prominent alarm companies. He’s been sharing tips and industry knowledge on the company blog since 2010.

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